(Eyewitness)The Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce (CAIC) is a private sector entity. It pushes the interests of businesses in the region so it can’t be accused of being a handmaiden of any political party. If the Caribbean is to ever get out of the rut as primary producers – foisted on us by the departing colonial powers – organisations like this have to identify strategies to overcome systemic constraints.

But earlier this week, CAIC that showed native informants and collaborators still conspire to keep us at the bottom of the economic totem pole. Men like Carl Greenidge, for instance, who was a Director of Caricom’s Regional Negotiation Machinery (RNM) that handed us the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe back in 2008.  The EPA, Greenidge and company assured us, would lead us to the Promised Land where we’d be exporting our value-added goods to Europe and the good times would roll.

CAIC pointed out, however, that Europe is using non-tariff barriers such as “standards” that have to be complied with, to keep out our exports. That’ll   take years – not to mention millions and millions of dollars – to overcome. Now, non-tariff barriers are no recent innovation to ensure asymmetrical trading relations. They’ve been around ever since trade agreements were crafted. Every “developed” country uses them to sequester their domestic markets.

Point is, Greenidge and his super-salaried buddies at the RNM knew this. They had to know about non-tariff barriers for the simple reason they’d talked about them. But they didn’t cover them in the EPA that the region was forced to sign because of their ineptitude. Even the African nations that had the sweetener of duty-free shipping of “Anything But Arms”, balked. The question is: why hadn’t Greenidge and his chums bolted our stable?

And the short and direct answer is “sellout”. Why’d you think whenever Ashni Singh requests a meeting with Greenidge to discuss APNU’s budget proposal, the man’s off to Brussels. Flying first class and staying in five-star hotels. You didn’t think APNU funds a European Diplomatic Mission, did you? Readers would remember that former President Jagdeo was furious with Greenidge for giving away the store. And cut short Greenidge’s official sinecure by not re-recommending him for the RNM.

And that’s another reason for Greenidge – -the consummate officer of the PNC – joining the radical wing of the PNC and becoming a hardliner. Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat whose gravy train’s been derailed.